This invention relates generally to applying promotion codes to payment transactions and, more particularly, to network-based methods and systems for applying promotion codes initiated by an account holder to payment transactions conducted over a bankcard network.
Historically, the use of “charge” cards for consumer transaction payments was at most regional and based on relationships between local credit issuing banks and various local merchants. The payment card industry has since evolved with the issuing banks forming associations (e.g., MasterCard) and involving third party transaction processing companies (e.g., “Merchant Acquirers”) to enable cardholders to widely use charge cards at any merchant's establishment, regardless of the merchant's banking relationship with the card issuer.
For example, FIG. 1 of the present application shows an exemplary multi-party payment card industry system for enabling payment-by-card transactions in which the merchants and issuer do not need to have a one-to-one special relationship. Yet, various scenarios exist in the payment-by-card industry today, where the card issuer has a special or customized relationship with a specific merchant, or group of merchants. These special or customized relationships may, for example, include private label programs, co-brand programs, proprietary card brands, rewards programs, and others. The special or customized issuer-merchant relationships often require direct communications between the parties for transaction authorization and/or clearing (e.g., for financial transactions). Further, the issuer may be required to maintain back office processes to manage the financial aspects of these special or customized relationships. Alternatively, the issuers may exploit communications through Merchant Acquirers to facilitate indirect communications with the merchants.
Consideration is now being given to ways of improving implementations of the special or customized issuer-merchant relationships in the payment-by-card industry. In particular, attention is being directed to utilizing legacy general purpose bankcard infrastructure to support the transaction routing, merchant accounting, and financial settlement for these special or individualized relationships.
At least some known special or customized issuer-merchant relationships include rewards programs or other special offers (e.g., financing) that are applied to purchases made by account holders or customers using a payment card over a bankcard network. Typically, in these cases, the issuer is required to track and apply rules representing the rewards programs or special offers to purchases made by an account holder. Consideration is now being given to ways to enable account holders to input promotion codes or business rules that are then applied to payment transactions using a payment card over a bankcard network, wherein the promotion codes or business rules inputted by the account holders are associated with a rewards program or a special offer being made by the merchant.